The Use of Social Media Text-Based Exercises to Promote University Students’ Knowledge of Non-Academic and Academic English Language

Abstract

In this digital era, students tend to write more for non-academic purposes on social media platforms by using informal language. Consequently, they become familiar with the informal writing style and use non-academic language in academic writing. This research, therefore, aims to discover 1) what are the results of using the social media text-based exercises developed by the researchers in promoting university students’ knowledge of non-academic and academic English language, and 2) what are the students’ attitudes toward the use of social media text-based exercises. The instruments included four sets of social media text-based exercises, a pre-test, a post-test, and an open-ended questionnaire. Participants were 96 third-year English major students enrolling in the Academic Writing course, sections 1, 2, and 3 in the 1st semester, the academic year 2021 of a university in Thailand. The findings showed that the social media text-based exercises were effective in promoting the students’ knowledge of the non-academic and academic language. Questionnaire respondents expressed great attitudes toward the exercises. They believed the materials enabled them to analyze and identify distinct features of the registers in non-academic and academic writing. Additionally, they mentioned that learning through the exercises was interesting, enjoyable, and understandable. The study also provided suggestions for improving the exercises.

Parental support strategies and motivation in aiding their children learn the English language

“…When teaching children English, parents must be adjusted to their developmental level (Rahman et al, 2022) which makes watching videos online and on social media as the prominent strategy because of its less intrusive nature and children can choose what topics are interesting to watch. Based on the recent study by Sriwichai (2022), social media promote learners' knowledge of non-academic and academic language using text-based exercises. The subject matter is relatively easy, such as numbers, animal names, fruit names, and so on.…”